[ILUG] Strangely broken rpm package

[Lars Hecking]

 Vmware's VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735 package seems to be broken in a strange
 way.

 I have a record of it being installed, and

# rpm -q VMware-Player
VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735
#

 So far so good. But:

# rpm -ql VMware-Player
/var/cache/vmware/VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.x86_64.bundle
# ls -l /var/cache/vmware/
total 0
# ls -l /usr/bin/vmplayer
ls: /usr/bin/vmplayer: No such file or directory
# 

 So, it is in fact not installed. How can this happen? Manual removal and
 reinstallation installs it correctly (for a value of correctly that
 benevolently ignores duplicate messages ...)

# rpm -e VMware-Player
# rpm -q VMware-Player
package VMware-Player is not installed
# rpm --upgrade --nodeps VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.x86_64.rpm 
Extracting VMware Installer...done.
Installing VMware Installer 1.0
Copying files...
Configuring...
Installing VMware Player 2.5.2
Copying files...
Configuring...
Installing VMware Player 2.5.2
Copying files...
Configuring...
Installation was successful
# ls /usr/bin/vmplayer 
/usr/bin/vmplayer
# 

 but listing the installed files still gives

# rpm -ql VMware-Player
/var/cache/vmware/VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.x86_64.bundle
# 

 What's going on?